Page 14 - Top MMA News and Mixed Martial Arts Headlines

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Controversy struck in the UFC on Fox 28 main event from Orlando, Florida on Saturday night.
Jeremy Stephens seemingly secured a future shot at the UFC featherweight title with a destructive TKO victory over Josh Emmett. After being dropped in the first round, Stephens rebounded to put Emmett in trouble in the second with a hard left hook.
Emmett went down and Stephens vigorously looked for the finish. He landed a good number of shots leading to the finish, but unfortunately, a few of them looked to be illegal.
A series of elbows to the back of the head and a knee to the face of his grounded opponent should have led to a pause in the action–at the very least–and perhaps a point deduction.
Performance Bonus - Jeremy Stephens and Ilir Latifi
Fight Of The Night Bonus - Alan Jouban vs Ben Saunders

Israel Adesanya isn’t wasting any time getting back to work.
Fresh off his impressive Octagon debut, the intriguing middleweight prospect has been scheduled to return April 14 against Marvin Vettori at UFC on FOX 29. The UFC announced the booking Friday.

Octagon newcomer Alexander Hernandez is stepping in on less than two weeks’ notice to keep a UFC 222 fight alive, officials announced Friday.
Hernandez, 25, is stepping in for Bobby Green, who suffered an undisclosed injury and was forced to withdraw from his lightweight bout vs. Beneil Dariush at the March 3 pay-per-view event in Las Vegas.

The UFC 224 fight card gets stronger every day.
The UFC is targeting a matchup between women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington for the pay-per-view, two people with knowledge of the situation told MMAjunkie. They requested anonymity because the UFC has yet to make an official announcement, although one side already has agreed to the bout.
UFC 224 takes place May 12 at Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro. The event’s main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on FS1 and UFC Fight Pass.

The UFC is planning to make its fourth trip to Dublin, Ireland in 2018.
Multiple sources have confirmed that the event will take place on Sunday, May 27, MMA Fighting has learned.
The event will take place at the 3 Arena, the same venue that hosted the promotion’s three previous visits to the Irish capital.

Sijara Eubanks is going to get another shot in the UFC.
The promotion is currently targeting Eubanks vs. Lauren Murphy for the June 1 UFC Fight Night card in Utica, N.Y., MMA Fighting has learned. The bout, which isn’t signed just yet, would be contested at 125 pounds.

The UFC’s return to Atlantic City, N.J., has its main event.
The promotion is close to finalizing Edson Barboza vs. Kevin Lee as the main event for the April 21 event at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, MMA Fighting has learned.

Finally.
After months of failed attempts to book Jimmie Rivera vs. Marlon Moraes, the UFC has broken through at last and is on the verge of finalizing the bantamweight fight as the headliner for UFC Fight Night Utica on June 1, MMA Fighting has learned.

With no return date set for UFC champion Robert Whittaker, the rest of the middleweight division will continue to jockey for position in his absence.
On Thursday, officials announced that Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Kelvin Gastelum will fight at UFC 224, which takes place at the Jeunesse Arena in Rio de Janeiro on May 12.

Frankie Edgar’s team have flipped out about Conor McGregor’s latest comments.
On Thursday, McGregor wrote on Instagram that he offered to fight Edgar on short notice at UFC 222 on March 3 when Max Holloway withdrew from the scheduled featherweight title fight. McGregor is the former featherweight champion and never lost the belt inside the cage. The UFC stripped him after he didn’t defend it and won the lightweight title.
Edgar’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz blasted McGregor and the remarks on TMZ shortly later, saying McGregor had the chance to fight Edgar multiple times and didn’t take it. Abdel-Aziz said McGregor could have fought Edgar at UFC 189 in 2015 after Jose Aldo pulled out, but chose Chad Mendes instead.
Mark Henry, Edgar’s striking coach, also blasted McGregor in an Instagram post, acknowledging the “The Notorious” as a great fighter, but basically telling him to keep Edgar’s name out of his mouth, because of the class individual and fighter Edgar has been for years. Henry said Abdel-Aziz asked about fighting McGregor when Holloway went down, but the UFC said it wouldn’t be possible.

Conor McGregor wants to make one thing very clear: He will absolutely fight again. And he wanted to do it sooner than you think.
The UFC lightweight champion wrote Thursday on Instagram that he offered to fight Frankie Edgar at UFC 222 on March 3 when Max Holloway pulled out of the scheduled featherweight title fight, but the UFC said “there wasn’t enough time to generate the money that the UFC would need.”

Welterweight veteran Mike Pyle is set to compete again for the first time in over 14 months.
A bout between Pyle and Zak Ottow was recently added to the official event page for UFC 222, which takes place on March 3 at the T-Mobile in Las Vegas, Nev.

Last year, rumors began to stir that Chuck Liddell was looking to come out of retirement and make a return to MMA. Shortly afterwards, Liddell stoked those flames with an Instagram post of himself and Tito Ortiz squaring off, with the caption ‘Why not?’ That post got Ortiz to take a shot at Liddell over Twitter, claiming no interest in a third fight with his former foe and suddenly, there was real heat for a trilogy bout. Ortiz would later admit he acted out of turn with his reply but the groundwork seems to have been laid and now, Ortiz is having a change of heart.
Speaking recently with TMZ Sports, Ortiz said that he has “a lot of interest” in a third fight with Liddell and that he pitched the idea to the UFC at the start of the year, but that the issue will be getting Liddell a license to fight.

As first reported by FloCombat, Gilbert Burns vs. Olivier Aubin-Mercier at Saturday’s UFC on Fox 28 card in Orlando, Florida, has been scrapped over weight-cutting concerns. The news was confirmed by the UFC:
Saturday’s UFC Fight Night bout between Gilbert Burns and Olivier Aubin-Mercier has been removed from the card at Amway Center in Orlando. Upon his arrival, the UFC medical team determined that it would be unsafe for Burns to cut additional weight necessary to meet the 156-pound limit. The card will proceed as scheduled with twelve fights.

Last year, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor boxed in one of the biggest fights of all time, there were immediate rumblings of a possible rematch, potentially in MMA. Now, this outcome is starting to have the feeling of inevitability.
Despite having retired from boxing after the MayMac bout, a few weeks ago Mayweather began teasing on his social media about a possible jump into the UFC. McGregor responded in kind and suddenly the biggest fight of 2017 was set to take over 2018 as well. Then, this weekend, Mayweather’s father and trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr., threw gasoline on the spark of the rematch, telling the Mayweather Boxing Channel that though he doesn’t understand it, he believes his son is genuinely interested in fighting in the UFC.

Thirteen fighters are no longer under contract with Bellator.
The list includes names like Fernando Gonzalez, Kendall Grove, Francis Carmont, Georgi Karakhanyan and Kevin Casey, a Bellator official confirmed to MMA Fighting following a report by Jason Floyd.
The combined record of the 13 athletes in Bellator was 39-31-1. In some cases, contracts expired and the fighters are now free agents.

Livinha Souza won’t be fighting at UFC 222.
The former Invicta FC strawweight champion was originally slated to face Jessica Aguilar at UFC Austin on Feb. 18, but an injured hand forced the promotion to change plans. The UFC considered moving the match-up to UFC 222 on March 3, but those plans are now gone.

The UFC London card has taken a hit as Elizeu Zaleski was forced out of a welterweight clash with Jack Marshman due to a knee injury, multiple sources told MMA Fighting following a report by Combate.
The Octagon’s return to London’s O2 Arena is scheduled for March 17.

Next month’s UFC Fight Night 127 has a new bantamweight addition.
Officials today announced a fight between Tom Duquesnoy (15-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) and Terrion Ware (17-7 MMA, 0-2 UFC).
UFC Fight Night 127 takes place March 17 at The O2 in London. The entire card streams on UFC Fight Pass, though the full fight lineup and bout order haven’t been finalized.